Cool Links #31: Mini-Break for Easter Edition

Thank goodness for Easter Break. Between pre-test madness and my dental problems, I’m frazzled. Three day weekend plus a teacher work day after is just what the doctor ordered – REST. But before I chill out, there are cool links to be dished up for all. Enjoy.

2) This is a shamless plug for Scott Bourne of This Week in Photography and Mac Break Weekly and many other fine media outlets. He is giving away a Drobo. If you don’t know, the Drobo is the best-awesomest backup system invented thus far. It is a little pricey for most school budgets (that’s why I’m hoping to win one). But if you have a blog, go check out his contest page and enter to win. All you have to do is link to http://www.photofocus.com and http://www.mydl.me. Plus send him a tweet via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/scottbourne. Get drobotized.

3) This little lesson is going into my web design bag of tricks. I am still new to CSS and DIV tags have been a hard sell for me. I love my HTML tables no matter how messy the code gets. My motto is – If it works, don’t fix it. But this informative article about Table Layout vs. Div Layout in Smashing Magazine has sold me. I’m going to read it again and again until I get it. But it is well written and easy to understand. I am determined to get out of table hell.

6) Creating Lifelong Learners blog has an awesome example of the Rule of Thirds both for video and photo. It is a mashup of a promo for Disney’s High School Musical 2. EVERY shot is a perfect rule of thirds example. Wow!

7) Apparently the Daily Bruin is all the Buzz, sorry about the bad pun. To make ends meet, they sold out, their front page. Innovation in College Media has they story and both the “ad front” and the actual front page images. Check it out. Great ethics topic for discussion.

8 ) With the end of the year in sight, yearbook day is coming. And with yearbook day, comes the critics. I am over 40, I have kids, teach kids and worked in the pro media – I have a tough skin. My students, not so much. They get hurt when other kids criticize their work. This is a good primer for handling criticism that all media teachers should share with their students if they are going to make their work public.

10) A couple of months ago I ran a post about image editors that can replace Photoshop if you don’t need to create CMYK TIFF images for publication. But most were Mac-centric, Speckyboy.com has a very Windows-centric list of image editors that can help those of you on the Microsoft side of the Media house.

12) We recently joined School Tube because we needed a place to put our entries for the Brainyflix contest, but there is a lot of great content and student created tutorials on School Tube, such as video shooting basics.

Well, my pain meds are cutting out, so I will cut this edition off short. Time to go take a nap and some medicine. Hope my insurance calls with my referral soon. Until then I’ll be sleepy and unfocused or in pain. But don’t let me stop you from having a great holiday.

If you have a link you want to send me send it in a Tweet on Twitter to @teach_j and put in the hashtag #jlinks.

Ah, Spring Break…it’s slipping away for moi, as I have to return to Ye Olde Schoolhouse on Monday! Hope you’re not layed up for all of your Easter break. Here’s a distraction for ya: Don’t forget Sx3 tomorrow…this seasonal salute even features a Real Prize!